Night Bloomer

The southern Arizona desert has some interesting plants and flowers.  Recently I was combing through some of my images and found these.  The top one is an image of a night-blooming Peruvian Cereus, which was in our back yard at the “Cactus Ranch.”  Unfortunately, the hard freeze that we had a few years ago destroyed the plant.  I found that to be particularly sad, but everything has a life cycle, including us.

The good news is that we can leave behind something of beauty if we choose.  We all have that opportunity.  I’m grateful to our Cereus plant for sharing her beauty with us, and that I was able to capture these images for posterity.  I did some digital enhancements on the top one because I’ll be using it for cards.  The bottom image is what the plant looks like with several blooms.  Namaste’

Regina (Gina) Arnold is the author of Uncomplicated Ways to Find Your Financial Freedom, a “flunked retirement” entrepreneur, co-author of The Art & Science of Recruiting, an award-winning photographic artist,  and photo blogger.

Shameless Promotion

Something I’ve always wanted to do … which I’ve kept a secret until now (except for hubby, of course) … is become a published author on Amazon.  Well, it finally happened!  Here’s my shameless promotion:  (drum roll please) …

My new title was just published … UNCOMPLICATED WAYS TO FIND YOUR FINANCIAL FREEDOM. 

It may or may not be obvious why I chose this topic to write about, so let me explain.  Many families around the world today, especially the U.S., are caught up in the debt cycle and can’t seem to find their way out.  I was there myself at one time and it was the most awful feeling – robbing Peter to pay Paul most months.

Families are struggling financially now more than ever so I feel they need simple, easy-to-follow solutions.  But the problem is that they can go online and research what to do, check out what all the financial gurus say, find experts willing to give some free advice (but later collect money for a program), etc.  and still not find something that isn’t confusing at best.  They need something they can understand and stick to.

So I decided to keep it easy and basic.  Will it work?  Yes, but only if applied.  Like anything else in life, right?

There are no reviews yet.  Hope to get some soon.  Want to be one of the first?  Buy a copy 🙂  Don’t have a Kindle?  Amazon gives everyone a free reading app for Kindle titles that can be used on smartphones, tablets, or PC’s.  Thanks and Namaste’

Regina (Gina) Arnold is also a “flunked retirement” entrepreneur, co-author of The Art & Science of Recruiting, an award-winning photographic artist,  and photo blogger.

The Cost of Having Me

In today’s world the cost of having children is huge compared to when I was born … 65 years ago today.  As I was going through some of my Mom’s things, I came across the hospital bill that she saved.

Back then they kept mothers and babies in the hospital for a lot longer than they do now.  Mom and I were there for five days and I was a natural birth.  I guess they wanted to make sure that we got the care we needed before sending us home.  What a concept as compared to now!  Mom said the doctor and nurses were terrific. Marysville is a great town … 4,000 people back then, and still around 4,000.  I haven’t been back there in a long while but one of these days, I plan to go.

As you can see from the breakdown on my hospital bill, it cost a whole $4.00 for “Care of Baby.”  Wow!  Compare that to the cost of having a child these days.  Unbelievable, isn’t it?

I was born exactly at 12:00 midnight on the 12th and Mom was in labor for 12 hours.  The doctor gave her a choice for my birth date and she picked the 12th because she said that was the date that she did all the “work.”  12-12-12 … hmmm.  Namaste’

 

 

Just for the Whimsy

OK, all you detectives out there.  What are the little “things” in this photo?  Shouldn’t be too difficult for you.  I’m not mean, after all, but I purposely didn’t tag it with any “clues.”  Have fun and let me know what you see.  Namaste’